


A Spooktacular Whumptober- Sulfur

by trustingHim17



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Angst, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Spooktacular 2020, Whump, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:07:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26763328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trustingHim17/pseuds/trustingHim17
Summary: A blast followed the command, and Watson jerked awake with a gaspI've decided to break apart my Whumptober responses, mostly because one of the plot bunnies majorly got away from me. The first chapter is still here, but the second chapter will be slightly rewritten then reposted as its own story, along with its sequel
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	A Spooktacular Whumptober- Sulfur

“Fire!”

A blast followed the command, and Watson jerked awake with a gasp, barely noting the rattling sound as he tried to get his bearings.

Battle raged all around him.

He pulled himself to his feet, cursing himself for sleeping through the initial attack. Judging by the tents in tatters around him, it was a miracle he was still alive and whole, and he moved slowly, checking for danger as he did so.

A cry for help came from his right, and he rushed towards it, pulling his medical kit from his belt as he ran. Skilled by now at juggling both weapon and medical kit, he had the kit open on the ground in moments, weapon always near to hand even as he worked to stem the bleeding.

He started talking quietly, trying to calm the nameless patient in front of him. The bleeding was comparatively minor, and the young man would live to see another day. All Watson had to do was bandage the area and get the soldier off the battlefield. An orderly knelt beside him, helping to finish the bandaging and lift the private to his feet. Patient and orderly slowly limped toward the camp set up away from the battle, and Watson looked for someone else to help.

There. Someone had slouched at the base of one of the sparse trees that littered the area. He strode toward it, kneeling beside the form, but just as quickly stood back up. There was nothing he could do for the young man in front of him, and he turned, scanning the gruesome battlefield again.

It was open melee, nearly impossible to tell one side apart from the other as uniforms fell apart and cavalry mixed with foot soldiers. He searched for another wounded, looking more for movement than merely someone down.

“Doctor!”

He glanced behind him, expecting someone needing help, but a smile escaped as he found James Johnston and Alec O’Connell waving from behind a nearby wall. He hurried toward them even as he watched for more wounded. The battle had degraded into disorganized chaos, and the lines were so blurred it was quickly growing difficult to know who might need help.

A stray thought crossed his mind wondering why nobody was attacking him personally, but he brushed it aside. He would take the break while he got it.

“Glad to see you among the living,” Alec greeted familiarly as Watson ducked into their cover.

Watson faintly smirked at the old greeting, now with a vastly different meaning. “I think I would rather be in my novels,” he replied.

The chuckle that answered was almost genuine, and Watson grinned. Alec had found Watson engrossed in a book many times throughout childhood, and he had always teased about returning to the land of the living when he had to coax the doctor out of the novel. The reminder was welcome in the horror that was battle, even after the many hours they had spent in the quiet of camp reminiscing about those simpler times.

“When are they calling the retreat?” Johnston broke in, peering around their cover.

Watson rolled his eyes, actively scanning for someone to help even as he answered. “Do you really think I would know that?”

Alec opened his mouth, obviously planning a piece of his sarcastic humor, but movement caught Watson’s attention, and his eyes widened.

“Get down!” he ordered, putting action to his own words.

He hit the ground with a thump, covering his head with his arms, and immediately frowned. This did not feel like the sandy Afghan earth beneath him. This felt more like…a floor.

He slowly sat up as his surroundings blurred, his friends disappearing as an unfamiliar, darkened bedroom overlayed the sandy desert. He frowned in confusion. Where had Alec and Johnston gone, and whose bedroom was this?

He pinched himself, trying to wake up, snap out of this, something, but nothing happened. None of this made sense, and he put his back to the closest object, desperately trying to understand. Where was he?

He inhaled, registering sulfur along with dust, grit, and soap. A gunshot echoed from the battle, and he reflexively ducked, pushing himself sideways until his shoulder impacted something solid. He glanced over. A wall conflicted with a tree, and he blinked hard, trying to clear his vision. Both tree and wall remained in place, however, and he frowned. Which one was real?

He looked around again, ignoring the now familiar battle still raging—and strangely ignoring him—to inspect the bedroom. Early morning sunlight shone through a window directly in front of him, illuminating both a desk off to the side of the window as well as a bed to his right. Covers spilled over the side of the bed, hanging low enough to brush the floor, and a wardrobe sat in the far corner.

Rhythmic thumping reached his ears before he could look further, and the creaking of hinges mixed with the chaos of battle, somehow just as loud as the screaming fusillade. He pushed his back firmly against whatever was behind him, more concerned with protecting himself than figuring out where he was.

“Watson?”

Battle faded behind the bedroom as his surroundings seemed to whirl around him again, and he groaned, finally realizing what had happened as the room settled with a nearly audible click. The disorientation following a regression was nearly as bad as the regression itself, and he only realized how badly he was hyperventilating when he noticed his trembling hands. Focusing on his breathing would only make it worse, and he studied his surroundings as he leaned harder against the wall, using the contact to ground himself.

The bedroom was his own, in Baker Street. He was huddled just behind the end table where the bed met the wall, two feet away from the pile of covers that had fallen from the bed, and he grabbed his pocket watch from where it glinted in the sunlight, passing it from hand to hand to give himself another anchor.

“Alright, Watson?”

Holmes’ voice came from behind the bed, just inside the door, and Watson froze, tensing. How long had Holmes been there?

He didn’t move, unwilling to leave the corner his mind still insisted was safest and not quite able to speak. Did Holmes know he was in the room? He was out of sight behind the bed. Maybe Holmes would leave, thinking that Watson had left earlier that morning.

Another memory tried to take over, and he put the hope out of his mind, turning to the senses technique to keep himself in the present as he resumed moving the watch back and forth. He tried to ignore the sulfur still permeating his bedroom, fighting to stay in London instead of Afghanistan.

* * *

Silence filled the sitting room, broken only by the clinking of glass as he carefully worked with his chemistry set. The early morning light filtered gently through the window, and he tried to stay quiet. Watson had not yet come downstairs, and after a sleepless night with a patient, his friend deserved to sleep late this morning.

The solution changed color as a smoky precipitation settled in the bottom of the beaker, and he turned up the burner, adding another reactant in the process. Noting his progress in the journal open nearby, he watched the now bubbling experiment carefully. Two minutes above the flame should be enough to prove or disprove his theory, but he had no way of knowing if he had added enough sulfur to the mix.

Nothing changed, and he added a little more, searching for the balance between not enough for a reaction and too much making it unstable. After a moment, foam appeared on the liquid’s surface, and he noted the density and color. This proved Manston innocent. He would take the results to Lestrade later.

The foam overflowed the beaker as he finished his note, rapidly growing and changing color again, and the journal hit the floor as he hurried to extinguish the flame.

He was too slow, and the foam ignited, exploding with a blast that set the pictures rattling. He reflexively ducked, losing his balance to join the journal on the floor, and a cloud of smoke rose above the Bunsen flame.

Pulling himself off the floor and coughing at the fumes, he quickly opened a window, turning off the now-hissing burner and setting what remained of his experiment away from the edge of the table. So much for letting Watson sleep this morning. The doctor would be down in a minute, ostensibly checking that the room was undamaged while in reality checking that Holmes was unhurt.

Quickly cleaning the spill, he set the broken beaker aside for the trash and started scraping at the burn mark on the table. He would go to the shop later to replace the beaker, but Mrs. Hudson had threatened to make him buy her a table if he left another scorch mark on hers. If he moved quickly enough, there was a chance he could fix the burn before it became permanent.

Nothing happened. The burn mark stayed stubbornly in place, and he sighed as he gave up. Mrs. Hudson would be furious, but there was nothing he could do. He turned to set his equipment to rights, done with the chemistry set for the morning.

A muted thump sounded from Watson’s room, and Holmes frowned, only just realizing Watson had not come down. He had seen his friend sleep through explosions before, but never in another room. Watson would have wanted to ensure Holmes was uninjured. Why had he not come downstairs?

Footsteps sounded on the stairs as Mrs. Hudson brought their breakfast up, but he ignored her, abandoning his chemistry set to quickly climb to Watson’s room as he tried to deduce what had happened. Watson could not still be asleep. Something was wrong.

He purposely made the hinges creak when he entered the bedroom, breaking the silence in warning.

“Watson?”

A faint groan was his only answer, and he stepped further into the apparently empty room, his worry growing. The pile of covers half-falling off the bed showed that Watson had woken, but the faint groan was the only sign of his presence.

“Alright, Watson?” he asked the room, stepping carefully away from the door.

There was no answer, but movement caught his eye, and he walked around the foot of the bed to see Watson on the floor in the corner, his back firmly pressed against the bed and the wall. His hands trembled, he was breathing far too quickly, and he passed a pocket watch from hand to hand. His flitting gaze seemed to look through the room instead of at it as he fought to stay in the present.

“Watson, can you hear me?”

That flitting gaze focused on his for the briefest moment, and embarrassment appeared in Watson’s expression. He made no verbal answer, however, gaze returning to scanning the bedroom.

Holmes slowly knelt a few feet away, remembering one of the many warnings Watson had given so many years ago, and started talking. Using short, simple sentences, he outlined their location, what they had done recently, what had caused the noise, and anything else he could recall, focused more on providing another anchor for his friend than on the words themselves.

It took several minutes, but Watson slowly relaxed as his breathing slowed. His flitting gaze included Holmes more and more frequently until he finally made eye contact.

Holmes broke off his monologue. “Are you with me?”

Watson nodded, swallowing visibly as his gaze flicked around the bedroom once more, and Holmes slowly extended a hand to help him to his feet.

Accepting the hand up, Watson regained his feet only to stumble, not quite smothering a grimace as he quickly sat on the bed. Holmes frowned, but Watson waved him off.

“I’m fine,” he muttered after a moment, trying to use the covers to hide how he massaged his bad leg.

Holmes made no answer, studying everything from the tension Watson still carried as he sat on the bed to how he resumed passing the pocket watch from hand to hand. Watson should have relaxed more than this after so long.

“What is it?” Holmes finally asked.

Watson shook his head, trying to take a deep breath only to stop himself, and Holmes frowned again. Why would—?

The scent registered. Watson’s room smelled strongly of hot sulfur, and Holmes nearly cursed aloud, stepping over to open the window. After more than an hour working with the element, he was so accustomed to the scent that he had not noticed it when he entered the room.

He walked back over to stand in front of the bed, still studying his friend, and Watson tried to brush off the scrutiny.

“Just a dream,” he finally said quietly when Holmes continued studying him, keeping his gaze on the bed.

Watson was making no effort to hide his thoughts, and the comment gave Holmes all he needed to deduce what had happened. The sulfur had caused a nightmare, and while the explosion _had_ woken him, he would have woken directly into a regression, continuing the memory where the dream had left off.

Holmes silently berated himself. He had thought to finish his experiment while Watson slept, not realizing the smell would permeate the flat. Watson always retreated to his room when Holmes’ experiments were too malodorous for him to remain in the sitting room, but Holmes should have realized the smell would still reach the bedroom.

Watson glanced up at the silence and shook his head, reading the guilt in his expression and denying that Holmes was at fault. He opened his mouth to say as much, but the attempt failed when something heavy and metallic clattered on the street below.

“I opened a window in the sitting room,” Holmes said before Watson could do more than flinch, “and Mrs. Hudson was bringing up breakfast when I climbed the stairs.”

Still searching for the words that had fled, Watson nodded instead of answering, and Holmes stayed nearby as they left the room, wondering how best to help. Watson rarely used his cane inside, but he was limping badly enough for Holmes to consider offering it.

Deciding Watson would refuse both cane _and_ an offer of help, Holmes merely took Watson’s arm in his own, ignoring Watson’s attempts to use the banister as he forced the doctor to lean on him. Holmes had no wish to see his friend take the fast route down the stairs.

Breakfast steamed on the table, replacing the smell of sulfur with eggs, sausage, toast, bacon, and coffee, but Holmes noticed a moment later that the place settings looked rather strange. Mrs. Hudson had set Watson’s place as usual, but had hidden Holmes’ plate and utensils in a clear opinion on the explosion and its results. He affected a sigh just to see Watson smirk.

Mrs. Hudson had hidden them well, and several minutes passed as they located each piece of Holmes’ place setting under various other objects scattered around the table. When they had found most of them, Watson served himself some eggs before finally breaking the silence.

“Did you burn the table again?” Watson asked quietly.

Holmes smothered his relief at the words, knowing that the quiet question meant Watson was slowly calming, and rolled his eyes in answer. Their landlady had known he would not be able to experiment without the occasional mishap. She should be glad he had made it _this_ long.

“Buy her something she needs for her own rooms,” Watson suggested, still smirking faintly as he passed the last utensil—a fork that had been hidden under the bacon.

“What do you suggest?”

Watson shrugged, turning his attention to the plate in front of him. “You are the detective,” he answered after a moment. “Find something she could use but might not intend to buy herself.”

“She threatened to make me replace the table last time,” he said carelessly, buttering a piece of toast as an excuse to remain at the table. Most of his focus remained on his friend instead of the food. “That qualifies.”

Watson tried to huff a laugh. “If you put a new table beneath your chemistry set, you will ruin that one, too. How irritated will she be then?”

He had a point, but Holmes refrained from acknowledging that, willing to use anything to keep Watson talking.

“She will be irritated either way. I cannot win.”

“Not with that attitude, you can’t.”

Holmes allowed a smirk to escape. “You will just have to help me, then. What should I get her?”

Watson’s gaze flicked up to catch his before just as quickly returning to his food. “She mentioned her sister’s sewing machine the other day.”

Holmes frowned. Watson was hiding something, to avoid eye contact like that, and Holmes ignored his toast for the moment, trying to decide what it was.

He could find nothing except that Watson was wondering at the lack of answer, however, and he nodded, agreeing to think on it even as he read everything Watson displayed.

The door clicked shut behind him, and footsteps sounded on the landing as Watson smirked, amusement appearing in his eyes.

“She was standing in the doorway?” Holmes asked, affecting a scowl. That would be the last time he left the door open behind them. Clients never avoided the loud board right outside the door, but Mrs. Hudson knew all the loud spots just as well as he did.

Watson nodded, still smirking but now holding eye contact, and Holmes sighed more in relief that nothing was wrong than in resignation that Mrs. Hudson had seen him agree to consider buying a sewing machine. Watson released a faint chuckle but said nothing, and with this evidence that his friend was finally calming down, Holmes turned the conversation to other things. The faster he could move the topic away from the regression, the sooner Watson would relax completely.

He made a mental note to put the sulfur away unless Watson was out of the flat.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is always greatly appreciated! :)


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